Giving Compass' Take:

• Providing a list of high schools with high graduation rates to middle schools increased the likelihood that would attend a school with a high graduation rate. Providing additional information muted the effect.

• Since too much information dulled the impact of the nudge, what behavior should be the top priority? How can nudges be used to improve other student outcomes?

• Find out what MDRC has learned about the use of nudges in public policy.

To help New York City students steer clear of high schools that are less likely to graduate students, it helps to whittle down their options.

That’s according to a new study, conducted by researchers across four universities, that provides insight into how relatively small interventions can change the behavior of city students as they sift choose among more than 400 high schools.

Aiming to answer questions about whether the city’s complex high school admissions process can be improved, the researchers gave students in 165 high-poverty middle schools a customized list of 30 New York City high schools with information about each high school. Every school on the “Fast Facts” list had a graduation rate above 70 percent and was within a 45-minute commute of the student’s middle school.

Researchers found that students who received Fast Facts were more likely than a control group to match with their first-choice school and were less likely to match with schools that had graduation rates below 70 percent.

Giving students more information, such as lists of non-selective schools or schools organized by theme, muted the benefits. Students who got the extra details were more likely to match to their first-choice school — but less likely than students who saw only the “Fast Facts” to avoid low-performing schools.

Read the full article on a nudge to help students avoid schools with low graduation rates by Monica Disare at Chalkbeat